Friday, June 06, 2008

as i was cleaning my room today, i read through some of the random notes i wrote to myself in the past year and didn't get a chance to do anything with yet. many of them were intended for blog posts but for some reason or other (SR PROJ), i never got around to sharing them.

anyway, here comes one of those now. but since it's been so long, i can't remember the context, other than to say that i was on a shuttle from the Denver airport to my hotel, where a bunch of people and their dogs were incidentally taking up residence. i was there for the weekend for a Students as Colleagues conference presentation, but everyone else in Denver was there for the dogs. (regrettably, i had taken pictures of the experience, but have since lost them in my harddrive death. no, i'm not over it yet.)

written on the back of my ticket stub, a conversation i was overhearing between 3 or 4 business people:"We could get a salad @ Chili's, put it on ice for our trip to L.A.""You could get Quizno's @ Phoenix. Or Schlotsky's... Quizno's though... Mm-mm good!" (--> isn't that another fastfood chain's slogan?)"We could get Sonic breakfast..." (they proceed to talk about ice. they discuss the iced drinks they've tried.)"Papasito's Burritos, you should get the avocado salad dressing. Ranch blended with avocado. Good fat!"

(i think my thoughts at the time were: "wow, do they know how impossibly ridiculous they sound?" who knew there existed a special sub-breed of human that prides itself on being fastfood aficionados? i pray to god i never become a person who spends so much time at work and/or in airports that i forget the joy of actual food and conversation. i try my best to focus my attention on those mountains i've heard so much about...)

on the other side of the ticket stub, written in different ink, i observe an interaction between a pair of dogs and their owners in the lobby of the hotel. i think i'm in line to buy a muffin. it goes like this:small voluptuous woman in a visor and spandex pants with a bit of a waddle walk. dog is large and slender, shaggy. dog encounters a small, boxy terrier(?) with an old man-looking beard. bearded dog's owner is a tall woman with a shiny long face. slender dog sniffs up beard dog. barking and attempted mounting ensues.owners tug at dogs' collars. walk in opposite directions. banter:curvy little woman: "She wants more of him!" (looks down at her dog, speaks to it as if to remind her:) "No puppies!" (they continue walking, dogs look longingly back at each other) "Oh, she wants more... She likes what she sees..."

at that moment i remembered Best in Show and the way the film satirizes the subculture, and particularly the absurdity of dogs shows' tendencies to simultaneously suppress and heighten sexual tension.

p.s. the blog post title was under suggestion of my past self. i guess i had a blog post in mind when i took these notes. or, had a title ready, at least. [edit: now that i think about it, i recall that it might have actually been a quote from the first conversation... wow.]